with the States in the promotion of such education in agriculture and the trades and industries; to provide for cooperation with the States in the preparation of teachers of vocational subjects; and to appropriate money and regulate its expenditure," approved February twenty-third, nineteen hundred and seventeen, is made available, in addition to the purposes specified in said act, for rent in the District of Columbia, printing and binding, law books, books of reference and periodicals, furniture, stationery, carpets, fuel, ice, telephone and telegraph service, street car tickets, typewriting and adding machines and other labor-saving devices and exchange of same, traveling expenses, including attendance at meetings of educational associations, societies, and other organizations, and all such other necessary miscellaneous expenses which are not included under the above special heads as the board may deem necessary to the execution and administration of the act, including postage on foreign mail. You are asking for this legislation?

Ms. CLAXTON. Yes. Section 7 of the act to provide for the promotion of vocational education referred to reads as follows:

That there is hereby appropriated to the Federal Board for Vocational Education the sum of $200,000 anually, to be available from and after the passage of this act for the purpose of cooperating in making the studies, investigations, and reports provided for in section 6 of this act and for the purpose of paying the salaries of the officers and assistants and such office and other expenses as the board may deem necessary to the execution and administration of this act. Apparently those who framed the bill supposed that this was sufficiently broad and also specific enough to cover all the necessary expenses of the board, but certain items, as printing, rent, etc., must be specified because of various acts. The Comptroller of the Treasury advised that the bill be amended that these things be specified in terms; therefore the request for this amendment. I think the amendment should specify the exact amount which in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1918, may be used for printing. Thirty-fourth Statutes at Large, 762, reads:

Hereafter there shall be submitted in the regular annual estimates to Congress under and as a part of the expenses for "printing and binding" estimates for the printing and binding required by each of the executive departments, their bureaus and offices, and other Government establishments at Washington, D. C., for each fiscal year; and after the fiscal year 1907 no appropriation other than those made specifically and solely for printing and binding shall be used for such purposes in any executive department or other Government establishment in the District of Columbia: Provided, That nothing in this section shall apply to stamped envelopes or envelopes and articles of stationery other than letterheads and noteheads printed in the course of manufacture.

Mr. SHERLEY. This $200,000 is a continuing, annual appropriation? Mr. CLAXTON. It is a continuing appropriation, but it does not specify that it may be used for these things against which there is a prohibition of using money unless it is so specified.

Mr. SHERLEY. What estimate have you as to the expenditures that you think it desirable to make in the District of Columbia for the purposes you have indicated?

Mr. CLAXTON. For printing and binding, $18,000 for this year; for rental, an amount not exceeding, I should say, $6,000. Indeed, it may not be necessary to use that. It was intended that the bureau and its staff should occupy rooms in the Land Office Building when a portion of that building should be made vacant by the moving out of the Land Office; but the expanding War Department has taken that space, and the Bureau of Education, which was in this building, has been moved into the Pension Office Building. The Secretary of the Interior has invited the board to share rooms there with the Board of Education. By crowding, possibly, it can be done. If so,

there will be no need for the payment of rent this year. The board did not meet until the 21st of July, and for that reason it has been impossible to make definite estimates. It is just now beginning to make up its staff.

The CHAIRMAN. What other expenses do you figure you will need? Mr. CLAXTON. You mean of these items here?

Mr. SHERLEY. Yes.

Mr. CLAXTON. For purchase of law books, books of reference, and periodicals, $500; for furniture, stationary, and carpets for furnishing the offices, probably $10,000, but no amendment is necessary for this. I have no basis for estimating the other items. I believe it is not necessary to itemize estimates for these, is it?

Mr. SHERLEY. Well, that depends on the judgment of the committee. Evidently you do not want to spend all this $200,000 here in the District.

Mr. CLAXTON. No. The board as yet has no chief clerk, and I doubt if any members of the board could give definite details of office expenses. There will probably be a meeting of the board on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, and I will submit this matter to

them.

Mr. SHERLEY. You can put that in your notes later.

Mr. CLAXTON. Yes.

Mr. SHERLEY. How much do you estimate for traveling expenses? Mr. CLAXTON. For the full year, $28,000. From now to the end of the fiscal year, probably $25,000 will be sufficient, including traveling expenses for attendance on meetings of organizations.

Mr. SHERLEY. What organization have you now?

Mr. CLAXTON. Only the organization of the board, with a chairman, the Secretary of Agriculture and a secretary, the Commissioner of Education, and a standing committee consisting of the three civilian or appointive members and the Commissioner of Education. We have appointed a director and five heads of departments, all appointed temporarily. No other members of the staff.

Mr. SHERLEY. What organization do you contemplate making? Mr. CLAXTON. We contemplate making an organization that shall consist of a director, assistant directors of four departments-education in agriculture, education in trades and industry, education in home economics, and education in commercial subjects-and an assistant director in research. There will be a secretary to the director and a staff for the administration of the office and probably 25 or 30 clerks and stenographers; an editor and an assistant editor; a statistician and an assistant; and from three to six experts in each of the four divisions which I mentioned in the beginning education in agriculture, education in trades and industries, education in home. economics, education in commercial subjects and assistants in research.

Mr. SHERLEY. Section 6 of the law provides that the Federal board created shall consist of the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Labor, the United States Commissioner of Education, and three citizens of the United States, to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and that the members of the board, other than the members of the 4400-17-58

Cabinet and the United States Commissioner of Education, shall receive a salary of $5,000 per annum. Have these commissioners been appointed?

Mr. CLAXTON. Yes; they were appointed about the 1st of July and their appointments confirmed about the 15th of July.

Mr. SHERLEY. Who are they?

Mr. CLAXTON. Mr. Charles A. Greathouse, formerly superintendent of public instruction in the State of Indiana. representing agriculture; Mr. James P. Monroe, a manufacture of Boston, representing commerce and industries other than labor; and Mr. Holder, of Washington, representing labor.

Mr. SHERLEY. As I recall the act, there is no provision in it outlining the personnel of the organization that shall be under this Federal Board for Vocational Education?

Mr. CLAXTON. There are no specifications in regard to that.
Mr. SHERLEY. Of course, you have no organization now?

Mr. CLAXTON. We have adopted an outline of an organization. Mr. SHERLEY. I understand that, but you have not actually got anybody?

Mr. CLAXTON. No.

Mr. SHERLEY. How many people have you got working?

Mr. CLAXTON. None at work yet. It is intended that the director and these five persons I referred to a while ago as heads of depart ments shall begin work on next Monday, the 13th of this month.

Mr. SHERLEY. Now, it is probably very desirable that this act, which was very loosely drawn so far as organization is concerned, should subsequently be so arranged as to provide, as all the departments of the Government do, for a fixed organization and the submission of regular estimates for the pay of such personnel. This is a deficiency bill growing out of the war. To what extent would you need authorization for the purposes indicated here to run you for the next few months until Congress in one of the regular bills could deal with this subject fully?

Mr. CLAXTON. I should think any such authorization should be for the fiscal year 1919.

Mr. SHERLEY. Not necessarily. There will probably be an act passed early next year which could deal with the whole subject matter. In the meantime you can not intelligently create an organization of any magnitude under a number of months.

Mr. CLAXTON. It will probably be the end of September before the organization can be completed. It is the purpose of the board to obtain competent assistants, and it will take time to find them. They must be selected and appointed under the rules of the civil service. We are asking for permission to appoint those I have mentioned for a period of six months without competitive examination, and that authority will probably be granted; in fact, we are sure it will be granted to-day.

Mr. SHERLEY. You do not think you will need your rent item at present?

Mr. CLAXTON. I can not say. The board is of the opinion it should be included in this amendment, because it may be impossible to find suitable quarters in any public building.

Mr. SHERLEY. For the present you have nobody to house?

Mr. CLAXTON. None except those mentioned; but the staff will be made up as rapidly as possible.

Mr. SHERLEY. The Bureau of Education went into the Pension Office?

Mr. CLAXTON. In a portion of the room formerly occupied by the Indian Office.

Mr. SHERLEY. Did the Bureau of Education have enough people to use all of that space?

Mr. CLAXTON. No; we use only the rooms which the Indians had on the lower floor. They had rooms on the second floor also.

Mr. SHERLEY. You have no place in mind now to rent?

Mr. CLAXTON. We have not.

Mr. SHERLEY. And this is just a general estimate?

Mr. CLAXTON. Yes.

Mr. SHERLEY. The same thing, of course, applies to furniture.
Mr. CLAXTON. Yes.

Mr. SHERLEY. For your printing and binding you estimate at $18,000. That is simply an estimate for the entire fiscal year?

Mr. CLAXTON. That is an estimate for the entire fiscal year, but will probably be needed for part of the year yet to come, because we shall need to buy a full supply of stationery, and this is included under printing and binding to the extent that it consists of letterheads and printed envelopes.

Mr. SHERLEY. Has the comptroller ruled that this sum of $200,000 is not available for printing and binding?

Mr. CLAXTON. Yes. On the 18th of May I asked him for an opinion in regard to this. I read from his reply:

I may state for your information, however, that the appropriation contained in section 7 of the act is general in its terms and is not available for any expense contrary to the numerous restrictive laws passed by Congress such as those relating to renting buildings or parts of buildings in the District of Columbia, having printing and binding done, purchase of law books, books of reference or periodicals, or purchase and maintenance of horse-drawn and motorpropelled passenger-carrying vehicles. There are many other laws which may or may not be applicable to the work of the board depending upon what they wish to do.

He suggested that if authority of Congress is to be secured for any of the purposes which by law the appropriation is not available, it would be well if the authority be in such details as to make exception as to all the restrictive laws which would limit the desired activity of the board.

Mr. SHERLEY. In pursuance of that suggestion you have put in these words "and all such other necessary and miscellaneous expense," and that, of course, would relieve you of any restriction of any kind?

Mr. CLAXTON. I suppose it would, sir.

Mr. SHERLEY. You do not desire any such blanket authority as that, do you?

Mr. CLAXTON. There may be other restrictions of which we do not know and which might be very embarassing.

Mr. SHERLEY. It might be embarrassing both ways. A provision simply saying that none of the laws relating to the other departments shall apply to this board would be equally effective and equally vicious. What we would like to know is whether there is anything

other than what you have indicated here that you desire special authority for?

Mr. CLAXTON. I can not answer that for the board. We shall need to have that looked into very carefully, and I suggest that we be permitted to submit later an addition to the amendment for the action of your committee or in the Senate.

Mr. SHERLEY. Could you submit, Mr. Commissioner, with your notes an outline of a present organization that might be sufficient to take care of this board for the immediate future?

Mr. CLAXTON. I could submit on the authority of the board now a diagram of the plan of organization. I could not submit for the board personally the personnel or any more definite idea as to the number of persons the board will employ. I could only report back to the board and ask them to authorize that to be done.

Mr. SHERLEY. I did not mean you individually.

Mr. CLAXTON. Of course, that would take time.

Mr. SHERLEY. It would not necessarily take a great deal of time. Within the next day or two the board could give the committee some idea about it, because we have nothing here as to the number of people they want to employ and the salaries and the duties of the persons they want to employ here in the District of Columbia. If you could submit something more in detail touching these other items the committee may then be able to come to some conclusion touching the matter.

Mr. CLAXTON. Would Wednesday of next week be too late?
Mr. SHERLEY. No; that would be sufficient.

Mr. CLAXTON. I think probably it can be done by that time. Mr. BYRNS. As I understand, under the appropriation granted under this law, while salaries can be paid to the members of the board, as a matter of fact the board can not do anything toward carrying out the provisions of the law until some such provision as this is adopted; in other words, until authority is given you to employ personal services within the District and also pay for necessary office furniture, etc.?

Mr. CLAXTON. The board did not so understand. I think possibly that question had not arisen.

Mr. BYRNS. I mean, under the ruling of the comptroller, that is the case?

Mr. CLAXTON. Under the ruling of the comptroller we could, I think, do everything that we need to do except what is specified here. I think we have authority to employ assistants. The act says "to be available from and after the passage of this act for the purpose of making or cooperating in making the studies, investigations, and reports provided for in section 6 of this act, and for the purpose of paying the salaries of the officers and assistants and such office and other expenses as the board may deem necessary."

Mr. BYRNS. I notice you do not ask here for authority to provide for personal services in the District.

Mr. CLAXTON. The board supposes it has that authority.

Mr. BYRNS. But at any rate, until you get authority to buy the necessary furniture and to provide for the printing and binding and stationery which will be necessary, the board will practically be handicapped in anything it might do?